


Tiny Dancer

by crown_of_weeds



Series: Be OK [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Ableism, Canon Disabled Character, Developmental Disability, F/M, Learning Disabilities, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:51:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crown_of_weeds/pseuds/crown_of_weeds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artie didn't know any other person who could get him high off their own happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiny Dancer

  
**Tiny Dancer**

**Title** : Tiny Dancer  
 **Author** : Crown Of Weeds  
 **Rating** : I'm putting it at R just so it matches the rest of the series.  
 **Word Count** : 2798 words.  
 **Spoilers** : Nope.  
 **Pairings** : Brittany/Artie  
 **Warnings** : Brittany is characterized as having an [ ID/DD ](http://www.aaidd.org/content_104.cfm) , and other characters can be canonically ableist about it. Like Artie's mom.  
 **Disclaimer** : I don't own _Glee_ , nor am I Elton John. I put them back when I'm done, and I don't make any money off of anything ever.  
 **  
This is a companion to** [ **_Sing Me A Song Of Forgetting_ ** ](http://crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com/1145.html) **and** **[ Out Tonight ](http://crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com/5517.html) .  **

** Summary:  ** Artie didn't know any other person who could get him high off their own happiness.  
 ****  


 

Artie was convinced that there was a method to Brittany's madness and, somewhere along the way in his investigation, he had accidentally fallen in love with her too.

 

It could be extremely awkward at times, hiding his calculus on his lap while he tried to explain why Brittany needed to care about equivalent fractions or the multiplication table. (Worse was, she _didn't—_ that's what decimals and calculators were for, and he was waiting for the moment he could see brewing in her eyes when she would demand to know _why_ her math teacher hated her.) But they got through it, and every now and then Brittany would let a comment slip like _adultery, being a dolt_ , or would tell the “elves” at the mall that _they had rights, you know_ , and Artie would feel one step closer to discovering the secret of the universe.

 

He wasn't an idiot. He knew Brittany wasn't some sort of secret genius.

 

He just couldn't shake the thought.

 

*****

 

Artie was used to people assuming that, since he had his chair, he wouldn't want to drive or dance or change floors at the mall. He was used to people offering to carry his books or tie his shoes. He was used to bullies making an occasional exception for him. And so Artie wondered, when Brittany's face flashed cold and sharp and  _aware_ before fading back in, when her voice sounded carefully thick and airy, if she was used to some pretty awful things too. 

 

Once, at a restaurant with his family last summer, the waitress had taken one look at his chair and turned away, asking his mother what he'd like to eat.

 

Artie couldn't ever imagine having to get used to that.

 

*****

 

Sometimes Artie wondered if he'd fallen in love with Brittany because of the swag. Tina was great and all, but she hadn't had a computer with a screen reader, or an iPad, or a program that typed when she spoke into the microphone, or a choice of three different symbol-supported, word-prediction-based word-processing programs. 

 

See, Artie had done his research after the first time he had sex with Brittany, trying to assuage his guilt over an act he was uncomfortably sure was actually some kind of pedophilia.  _Thank god for the internet_ , because now he could say with some authority that people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities—Artie had never asked for her exact diagnosis—could have sex if they wanted to. Which was awesome, because he  _loved_ sex, and so did Brittany, and it was even better when they did it  _together_ . He probably would have considered it Time Well Spent Googling just for that, but then he'd discovered the world of assistive technology and hadn't wanted to leave his laptop for two weeks.

 

He was kind of jealous, actually. All he had gotten was a wheelchair. 

 

*****

 

Artie did ask, finally. Brittany was pushing him to Spanish after a  _fascinating_ lunch they'd shared with Becky, and Artie couldn't see her face but he could remember her telling Becky excitedly that she'd totally be there to cheer her on for the Ohio Special Olympics that weekend, and he was beginning to worry that he was being a horrible boyfriend again.

 

"Hey, Brittany,” he started, trying for casual, “do you compete this weekend? Should I be up at OSU cheering for you?” 

 

“What?” Brittany hummed, turning the corner. “What do you mean? I'm not on the cheerios anymore, did I miss a Glee Club thing again?” She sounded very Zen about it. “Oh, hey, wait. I got this. OSU. Artie, weren't you paying any attention? I'm going up there to cheer for Becky and to make sure Coach Sylvester doesn't try to sabotage the other athletes, which Becky is very concerned about. I could totes use your help with that, but I'm not competing, no.”

 

“Oh,” Artie considered this information. He still...they needed to talk about it eventually. They should say it outloud. She talked about his legs all the time. “But, um. Brittany. Couldn't you compete? I mean, the school sends _me_ forms for it.”

 

“Artie,” Brittany laughed, “the school's super stupid, everyone knows you'd need to do the Paralympics. And of course I can't compete, I have dance every day and Glee Club and motocross and I used to have Cheerios and Lord Tubbington is still working on our time machine. But Becky's events are mostly on Saturday, and it's what friends do.”

 

“But you would, if you had time?”

 

“Duh. Well, maybe. I mean, I don't think Mom would want me to, she wouldn't let me join even when I had time in elementary school.”

 

“Brittany,” and he stopped the chair and wheeled around until he could look at her eyes. She was bouncing a little, frowning at the memory. “Hey. This is important. _Could_ you compete if you wanted to? Like, you meet all the requirements?”

 

Brittany froze.

 

Artie saw the blurred bodies of seven other students pass before Brittany, never making a noise, snapped her hips back and took one, two, three steps away. Her voice was tight. “I thought...you never tried to give me a bracelet. Or a lollipop, or a slushie, or a milkshake, or...I thought Becky could have lunch with us and it would be okay.”

 

Artie hadn't follow any of that, but Brittany was shaking as her eyes got bigger and brighter and she'd moved  _away_ and no, shit, this was not what he wanted. He wheeled forward, searching his mind for the right words, and Brittany stepped back into the lockers. “Danger, Will Robinson, danger,” she whispered, and then:

 

“You don't look anything like Jesse, though.” 

 

She started to cry.

 

Artie felt a surge of something at the mention of Jesse—he'd seen the video, of course he had, and maybe that was why he wanted to punch something now—and his sudden appetite for violence made him feel like Puck. He channeled his inner badass and made a decision. “Let's skip Spanish today,” he announced. Brittany sobbed.

 

“What?” she snuffled. “That's not right. You never skip class, and this, this is the part where you beat me up and break up with me and oh, here we go, okay.”

 

Artie took both of her hands in his as softly as he could and focused on not throwing up. “What? _No_. Brittany,” he said maybe a little too fiercely, “I love you and I'm not going to hit you. Not ever. I want to skip Spanish so we can go to the auditorium and so we can talk and so I can make you feel better, because I think I went about this all wrong. I'm really, really sorry about that. Brittany, you're magic, and I'm not ever going to get tired of saying that because it's not ever going to stop being true.” 

 

Brittany took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Artie watched for a second. “We talk about my legs sometimes,” he said softly. “This is the same thing, ok? Didn't you start dating me because you loved them almost as much as my awesome robot chair?”

 

Brittany opened her eyes and locked onto his. There was a moment of nothing, and then she bit her lip. “Do I have to come if I don't want to?” she asked quietly. “Can I go to Spanish on my own?”

 

Artie swallowed. “Yeah. Of course.”

 

Brittany looked around the corridor and watched a backpack shaped like a teddy bear until it disappeared around the corner. She nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Let's do this then.”

 

*****

 

“My paperwork,” she'd offered, swinging her legs off the edge of the stage, “just says 'intellectual disability.' I can't keep track of all the different things the doctors have said.” She laughed. “You know what the stupid part is, though? The so totally _me_ part? Until...until that day in the halls, with Jesse, I didn't know what it meant.”

 

Artie really needed to think of something to say.

 

“But I think,” she said with the air of someone making a decision, “that the worst part was what happened next. You know, you must have seen the video. When Santana went batshit?” She laughed again; Artie wondered when had her laughs started sounding like barks. “I realized that everyone else already knew.”

 

*****

 

Artie knew what Brittany meant, now, when she muttered that Ms. Crosswilder was  _totally violating her IEP_ , and he also knew why Santana would push at her shoulder and whisper about  _we don't talk about that around...in Glee Club, remember Britt_ ?

 

He wasn't so sure he'd really wanted to. 

 

He'd tried talking to Santana about the whole thing, but she always looked like she wanted to eat him for breakfast and so he'd never really gotten around to it.

 

*****

 

“I,” announced Brittany, “really want a bubble bath. Do you like bubblegum or mixed floral bubbles better?”

 

Artie thought about it for a second, but decided he was way too post-coital to argue. “I dunno,” he sighed happily, “I haven't had a bubble bath since I was eight, I forget.”

 

Brittany sat up and frowned at him. “I don't understand.”

 

Artie shrugged lazily. “By the time I got back from the rehabilitative center, they'd remolded the house so I could get around. The downstairs bathroom doesn't have a tub anymore. I take showers.”

 

“But bubble baths are awesome.”

 

Artie grinned. “So are you. It's a match made in heaven, yo.”

 

“No,” said Brittany, shaking her head, “ _we_ are a match made in heaven. We even talk about our feelings now. It's awesome. I want to take a bubble bath with you.”

 

That thing where Brittany make him lose his words was starting to become a trend, and Artie didn't know how he felt about it. He was still trying to puzzle it out when she transferred him into the tub and crawled in behind him, humming happily. “I'm going to slip under and drown,” he said, and she laughed.

 

“Nope. I've totally got you. Just relax and let me do this.”

 

Artie had wished he'd been able to kick Mr. Shuester in his face when he'd tried to tie his shoes for him, but when Brittany started washing his back he felt a sun supernova under his skin.

 

*****

 

Being in love with Brittany was just so _easy_. Artie didn't have to think about it at all, just felt his muscles relax whenever he saw her and heard his voice shift into something softer, and he always just felt so slow and warm and lazy when she smiled and took his hand. Brittany _was_ some crazy fairy kind of magical, and it had nothing to do with her far-away eyes or odd sayings and everything to do with her huge, warming smiles and the way they contrasted with the stretch in her spine and jerk of her hips when she danced. 

 

Artie didn't know any other person who could get him high off their own happiness.

 

*****

 

His mother really wanted to meet Brittany, and you could only have a girlfriend you never brought home for so long before suspicions were raised. And there was nothing to be suspicious about, he wasn't _ashamed_ , but there was only so much a database systems analyst and Brittany would have in common to discuss, and his mother was a pediatric psychiatrist, and, oh man, this was going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

 

Still, he figured, Brittany _could_ be sort of quiet and reserved when she met new people. Sometimes. His parents had loved Tina, so this could totally work. He could probably count on at least an hour before the conversation took a turn that would have his mother smiling distantly and reaching for a notebook. Artie just needed to plan carefully and optimize his chances for success. They could have dinner at a nice, neutral location—Breadstix hadn't yet produced a dipshit waiter in his experience, and he could probably swing Wanda, who'd had a soft spot on him since his fateful double-date with Puck. (A seventy-five dollar tip would do that, he supposed.) Plus, Brittany had the menu memorized already, and dinner should take almost exactly an hour, maybe a little longer with dessert. Eating at a restaurant meant no notebooks for his mother, and lots of polite, insignificant conversation that would be easy to direct. Brittany could meet them there, and then they could drive her home and it would all be enough to satisfy his parents for a while and make an excellent first impression. He was probably a genius.

 

Artie was feeling incredibly satisfied with himself until, transferring from his seat in the car to his chair in the parking lot at Breadstix, a motocross bike pulled into the space beside him. His dad turned around instinctively, and his mother was snapping something about “for Christ's sake, you can _wait_ three seconds for him to get into his chair before you roar on in, can't you?” as she came around the car, and Artie had exactly enough time to think _oh, shit_ before Brittany pulled off her sparkly pink helmet and shook out her hair.

 

“Hi Artie!” she chirped. “Hi Mr. Artie's Dad. Hi Dr. Abrams. Artie, you never told me your mom was a bad doctor.”

 

Of all the outcomes he'd prepared for, of all the worst-case scenarios Artie had carefully scripted out responses to, this one had never occurred to him.

 

“Er,” he offered. “Mom, Dad, this is Brittany.” Brittany climbed off the bike and smiled, rocking back on her heels, and Artie couldn't help himself. Wheeling closer and lowering his voice, he pulled her in for a kiss and whispered “Um, Brittany, is it legal to drive that on major roads?”

 

“You should ask your mom,” Brittany advised, pulling away so he couldn't hide under her hair. “She always has the answers to stupid trick questions.”

 

The evening went downhill from there.

 

*****

 

“Just because your legs don't work anymore,” his mother exploded as they drove back home, “doesn't mean your _brain_ can't.”

 

*****

 

Artie knew he should say something back to counter his mother's stream of “you know, we've had to fight every year to keep you in school in Lima, they wanted you in a separate facility as soon as you came back from the rehabilitative center, I have to call the school twice a year and tell them to stop sending us those damn registration forms for the Special Olympics, and now you're throwing your lot in with _them_?” but _yes_ would only mean a lot more yelling.

 

He remembered the way Brittany had thought nothing of offering him her Rootbeer Lipsmacker, and the way she curled happily onto his lap and let him wheel her to classes “Santana said not to tell anyone I take.” He remembered discovering her encyclopedic knowledge of medicine and telling her about the studies he'd printed out last year on spinal cord injury treatments, and he remembered the way she had kissed his forehead and murmured that there was a reason none of it had been peer-reviewed, and AT was definitely where it was at. He remembered the lengths he had gone to keep the illusion of Santa alive just one more year for her, and the way the whole Glee Club had gotten into it. He remembered the way her eyes had gone huge and then small and misty when she saw the ReWalk under her tree, and the way she had known what it was on sight. He remembered still trying to put _walk_ and _me_ into the same sentence while Brittany had cradled it like the Christ child and announced “we'll have to try it in the choir room, of course,” and how he'd realized, distantly, that she was developing a disconcerting habit of being much, much smarter than he was.

 

He remembered how it had been, taking those first trembling steps into her arms, but what he remembered most of all was how she'd just nodded when he'd asked if he could maybe keep it at her house.

 

“It's your magic comb,” she'd offered when he found he couldn't explain—and then he realized she'd never asked him to, and the tears came. “It's okay,” she'd agreed, going to get his wheelchair. “I wish I could stop taking my meds.”

 

Being in love with Brittany turned out to be the easiest, most natural thing Artie had ever done.

  



End file.
